


i lay (in worship) at your feet (the love letter remix)

by nigiyakapepper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AFAB Language Used for Keith, Alternate Universe - High School, Character Study, Established Relationship, Genderqueer Keith (Voltron), Light Dom/sub, M/M, Phone Sex, Relationship Study, Shiro's dom awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigiyakapepper/pseuds/nigiyakapepper
Summary: Shiro's got Kee on his mind, and gets thoroughly distracted from studying for his physics final. It's not the nudes, though, he hasn't seen that text yet. Shiro's always got Kee on his mind.Or Shiro's thoughts leading up to the phone call.[a remix of "bad decisions (make better stories)" by akaiiko for the Sheith Remix 2020]
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52
Collections: Sheith Remix 2020





	i lay (in worship) at your feet (the love letter remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akaiiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/gifts), [onehornyunicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onehornyunicorn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [bad decisions (make better stories)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726595) by [akaiiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko). 



> **!!** Warnings of the original work apply! This fic also isn't standalone so kindly read the original first before this if you haven't already **!!**
> 
>  **basic faq for this series** :
> 
>   * keith was assigned male at birth. he identifies as genderqueer and uses male pronouns for himself. he presents as female -> other people see him as female, and use female pronouns for him, and he’s good with this / prefers that they use female pronouns 
>   * shiro is not currently aware that keith is not a cis girl. neither is anyone else in keith's life. 
> 


Kee sometimes becomes a way that breaks Shiro’s heart.

The closest he can describe what he sees is untethered. She looks achingly open and vulnerable sometimes. Or lost, or desperate for something he can’t quite name. The worst is whenever Shiro happens to defy whatever expectations she has of him – a reply that cools her ire rather than stokes it, a grounding hand on the small of her back, agency, patience, a firm voice to bolster her own on the rare occasions it wavers – Kee looks so disbelieving, like things are too good to be true and she has to brace herself for them to end at any point.

Shiro hates himself for being unable to make her feel like she deserves good things, or that the things he gives _he can keep on giving_. And while he can’t perceive them growing old and gray just yet, he’s serious about playing for keeps. He’s serious about being Kee’s last first kiss.

Shiro doesn’t let himself notice how many times he’s asked Kee what’s wrong; doing that feels like he’s stacking up something angry against her when what he wants is to chip away at Keith’s walls, or at least to let him in before she closes them up again. She’s built them high and strong. He knows she’s proud of those walls. He knows it’s important for her to keep those walls. Shiro doesn’t deem himself so arrogant as to make it a conquest of tearing them down.

He just wants…

He _wants_. It’s been a stirring in his gut – ever since she whispered “You see me” under her red umbrella that rainy afternoon five months ago – that’s steadily grown beyond what he can rationalize with words, beyond being boyfriend and girlfriend, beyond so-called high school royalty, beyond faraway nebulous fantasies of a suburban home with a white picket fence and a yapping dog. His body is wracked with a powerful desire of belonging. He’s sinking in a mire of worship of Kee – being hers as she is his.

In truth, Shiro doesn’t know how he wants to love Kee – he just knows he wants to, and it scares him a little how damnably and steadily all-consuming it feels.

He just knows that when he looks at Kee, he doesn’t want to see any doubt about what this thing between them is, or any fear that it’s going to end any time soon.

Shiro can only guess at why the fear exists from the precious windows he’s gotten into Kee’s life and past – from quiet conversations shared lounging on the hood of Shiro’s car after they’ve gotten drinks from a nearby gas station and driven out of campus to look at the stars, meandering comfort on the gold-gilded bleachers after both their practices have finished and their team mates have left the field, to Shiro’s own assumptions by putting all the twos and twos together in a constant conflict between his patience and his obsession to know everything about his cherrybomb.

The death of a beloved father at a young age, tossed around in bad foster homes before being taken in by a gaggle of four to six well-meaning, self-assured but stern uncles(?), reuniting with a long-absent mother in middle school. Shallow flings, catcalls, jealous stares, navigating the waters of high school politics, amassing and ignoring the titles tagged to her name – Head Bitch in Charge, Ice Queen – all the gazes that never went past how she looks and what stereotypes she fit into.

Shiro frowns at his daily phone reminder to take his meds and do morning stretches. He can certainly empathize with the necessity of guarding you heart, how natural it feels to keep people at arm’s length until you’re suddenly blindsided with how lonely you feel, but he can’t imagine how it is to have one so hurt to guard it as closely as Kee does.

He sighs. He’s thoroughly and utterly distracted from studying for the physics final. Matt had declared a break two hours prior and hasn’t returned since. Shiro suspects he’s clocked out for the night in favor of video games and doesn’t have the heart to argue. If Shiro is honest, they’ll be fine (but Shiro didn’t get and maintain his grades by settling for fine. He's gonna let it be, anyway).

There seems to be little point in pushing the night, so he bids Matt goodbye and drives back home.

…and sees Kee’s message sent some rough twenty minutes prior.

> **cherryb 9:24PM** i can’t believe you haven’t even asked for nudes.

It takes a while for Shiro’s brain to catch up to what he’s read. Apropos of nothing, on top of the things on his mind, on top of the memory of the rouge of Kee’s kiss when they parted after lunch. Kee nude? Sweet Jesus.

> **Shiro 9:42PM** Are you trying to kill me?

The reply comes a minute later, in which Shiro spent in stupefied wondering what brought this on. The red light, however, doesn’t care about how much time he would’ve wanted to come up with an answer. He glances at Kee’s “no” flash on his screen and his mind goes “Oh… Well.”

Shiro is suddenly grateful for the drive.

He can practically hear the smallness of that ‘no,’ see the way Kee’s eyes might dart to the side before her brows furrow when she realized she’s made any sort of face, before realizing who she’s made that face with and looking up at Shiro with an incredible mix of defiance – a dare for him to call her out – and an unwilling plea to see past that and call her out anyway, because there isn’t anyone she’d allow but Shiro. Only Shiro.

He goes through the motions – parks his car, gives his grandparents a brief hug before they swat him out of the living room for disturbing their movie and simultaneously threaten him with dinner leftovers in the fridge. He heads for his bedroom, pulls out his phone and places the call. Kee mentioned going out with the team after practice. Something must’ve happened.

It rings for a while before Kee picks up, breathless. “Hey.”

Shiro doesn’t count how many times he’s asked ‘what’s wrong?’ He’ll give and give until he doesn’t have to. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong?” He drops his car keys into the bowl on the dresser by the door, which she hears.

“You were out?”

“Yeah. At Matt’s studying for the physics test tomorrow.” Bag in the corner, laptop on the desk, socks in the hamper. He’ll worry about undressing later—

“Oh.”

—because he needs to pay attention to this conversation. Shiro feels his heart creak at the sound of Kee’s voice. His focus hones in on giving Kee what she needs.

It’s not the question of how – it’s not a hardship to know what to say as it’s something that generally comes naturally to him. But for the powerful desire to curl around Kee, to mold his body to her shape and bring her comfort beyond getting her home and tucking her in bed when she feels sick or coming between her and douchebags who still think she’s a prize to covet - it morphs into something hardier, more possessive, claiming, affirming.

He wants to bring Kee safety, in the way that she completely feels at ease with him – none of the looming fear Shiro can’t seem to find the source, none of this hedging and hesitation and thinking he’d let the conversation go after a thrown away “It’s fine” when things clearly aren’t.

None of this strange mesh of guilt and power when he says “We can do this the hard way” and Kee surrenders.

If she wields her words with the precision that strikes fear into the hearts of others, Shiro wields his words to bring Kee and only Kee to the sweetest ruin. He shakes her apart until she shatters, mind and body, and Shiro gets to hold her, soft and sweet, without walls or fears or insecurities.

He’s been painfully hard for the entire duration of their call and his bedroom door is locked shut, but relieving himself is the furthest thing from his mind. He settles into bed when Kee asks him to stay on the line, voice even more adorably raspier and deeper. He calls her his baby girl and listens as she drops off the sleep.

Shiro knows there will still be days that Kee becomes a way that breaks his heart. For now, in the quiet moments, this is enough.


End file.
